Report -R3 GCI ROTOR Radar Station - RAF Bawdsey - December 2013

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RAF Bawdsey has been associated with the research, development, and provision of direction finding technology and was the location for the UK' first operational radar station.

In 1950, the station was chosen to participate in the ROTOR programme which should have been operational by January 1952. Work on the R3 two level underground control centre at the northern end of the site began late in 1950

The bunker had 10-foot thick ferro-concrete walls, complete with its own borehole, generators and filtered air conditioning. They were supposed to give protection against a near miss by a 20 kT nuclear weapon